How Much Weight Can I lose in 3 Months?
March 06, 2024
Everybody likes staying in shape. Achieving your ideal body goes a long way toward your confidence. The key to staying fit is eating healthy and exercising on a regular basis. But at times, we tend to dispatch from our routine. This is when you start gaining weight and losing your body shape.
We only come to the right side of this realisation when some event strikes us. The worst part is you are always left with 3 months or less to cut out all that extra weight to look your best at the event. And such a short period makes you wonder how much weight you can lose in 3 months.
This is when we start to look for instant methods that bring quick results. Our tech-savvy society is going exceptionally fast with instant solutions to our concerns. Getting instant results has somehow become the new norm. However, when it comes to weight loss, the idea of instant results is not a good one.
Today we’ll be discussing how much weight we can really lose in 3 months, along with how we’re going to go about doing it.
| Table of Contents |
| How much can I lose in 3 months? |
| How best to lose weight in 3 months |
| Why extreme weight loss is not good |
| Final thoughts |
How Much Can I Lose in 3 Months
So how much weight can we expect to lose in 3 months?
Well, this depends on our starting point. As you can imagine, someone with a higher body fat percentage can lose fat quicker than someone with a lower body fat percentage as they have more to lose.
Men over 25% body fat and women over 35% boy fat can typically lose 1-1.5kg (2-3lbs) of fat per week whilst still maintaining muscle mass. This could potentially result in a loss of between 12-18kg (26-39lbs) in 3 months.
Bear in mind, as we begin to lose body fat and get leaner, the rate at which we’ll lose body fat will begin to reduce, therefore the lower end of the 12-18kg is probably more likely.
Now for individuals who are leaner to start with (men at 10% body fat and women at 20% body fat), the rate at which they’ll be losing fat is a lot slower. We can expect to lose around 0.25-0.5kg (0.5-1lb) per week. So over the course of 12 weeks this equates to 3-6kg (6-13lbs).
When you think about how much weight you can lose in 3 months, make sure you are conscious about what you are losing: fat or muscle bulk. Because an aggressive diet can make you lose muscle as well as fat, which is not something we want to do.
If we lose large amounts of muscle mass along with fat mass, we run the risk of becoming what some people like to call skinny fat.
Therefore, we want to be targeting a reduction in overall fat mass, not complete body mass. Not only will this help you achieve the body you desire, but it’s also considered a much healthier approach.
It’s also worth noting that the rate at which we lose fat varies from person to person. Multiple factors like genetics, lifestyle, exercise frequency, and calorie deficit (discussed below) all have an impact on how quickly we can lose fat.
The rest of the article discusses the best ways to go about losing fat so that you can benefit from some awesome progress over the next 3 months.
How Best To Lose Weight In 3 Months
Losing weight is a journey of changing multiple aspects of your lifestyle. Follow these tips to have a healthy weight loss journey.
Calorie Deficit
The most important factor when it comes to weight/fat loss is the Calorie deficit.
Simply put, a calorie deficit is when you’re eating less than you burn on a daily basis. This puts the body in a negative energy balance and as a result, you’ll lose weight.
To make up for the reduction in calories, the body utilises stored reserves (ie. Fat stored in the body) to generate the energy required to perform our daily activities.
If we’re not in a calorie deficit, then we’re not going to lose weight.
And if you think you’re in a calorie deficit but you’re not losing weight – then you’re not.
We have a comprehensive breakdown of exactly how much you should be eating to lose body fat over at ‘How much should I be eating to cut body fat?’. This article discusses how to work out your daily calorie target along with how much protein, carbohydrates, and fats you should eat.
The first step to implementing a calorie deficit is to work out your maintenance calories. This is the number of calories you need to be eating daily to remain at the same weight. From here we need to subtract 200-400 calories to create the deficit. For example, if our maintenance calories are 2500, then we should aim to eat between 2100-2300 to lose body fat.
Check out the following article for the full breakdown:
But if you're not in the market for tracking calories, then don't worry, this is not the only method available for weight loss. There are other methods availble to help enforce a calorie deficit without the need to log every bit of food you put in your mouth - check out the relevant article here.
Training and Exercise
There are 2 ways to create the calorie deficit mentioned in the section above.
- We can eat less
- We can burn more
Eating less isn’t always easy as we may already be on a low-calorie diet, plus food is just too good!
That leaves us with option 2 – We need to burn more.
The way we’re going to do this is through working out.
In our opinion, working out is always the route you want to go down when it comes to losing fat. If we didn’t work out but maintained a calorie deficit; yes we’d lose weight – but that would be in the form of muscle and fat and essentially we would just look like a smaller version of our previous self.
We’d run the risk of attaining the skinny fat look – low amounts of muscle with relatively high levels of fat.
Working out is the best way to maintain or even build muscle during a calorie restricted diet. Being able to maintain the muscle, whilst losing fat significantly improves our body composition, creating the sought-after toned/strong look.
Take a look at ‘Weight training for weight loss’ to learn everything you need to know about working out for fat loss.
Add Supplement To Your Daily Diet
Like everything, dieting has its downfalls too. And vitamin deficiencies are one of the top ones! While taking restricted foods and meals, you may be missing out on some important vitamins and minerals.
Therefore, it is always a good idea to supplement your diet with multivitamins and important minerals to ensure we’re not falling short of our daily needs.
Either that or make a conscious effort to get your vitamins through your diet.
While there’s no special supplement you can take to lose weight, there are some supplements available to aid you during your fat loss program. Take whey protein for example, a study was conducted to see the effects of whey protein supplementation during a calorie restricted diet. The results found that not only did supplementing with whey protein increase the retention of lean muscle mass, but it also helped with fat loss.
Some people also find it hard to hit their daily protein targets too, so opting for a protein supplement is definitely worth considering.
To learn more about other supplements that can help you along your fat loss journey, take a look at our recent article. We discuss the top 5 supplements that we would take during a fat loss phase.
Adherence and Consistency
Last but not the least, consistency is the key to your weight loss. All the efforts you are putting in will all go back to square one if you fail to keep up with your diet and exercise. Adherence is key to seeing long-lasting results in any fat loss program.
How much weight can I lose in 3 months: Your answer lies in this very formula! It all depends upon your consistency with your exercise and diet management.
Not only this, but consistency also helps in building long-term and sustainable habits for eating healthy.
Why Is Extreme Weight Loss Not Safe
As excess of everything is bad, similarly going overboard with your dieting can be devastating too!
The body can only lose a certain amount of fat weekly. With extreme weight loss, not only will you be losing fat, but you’ll also lose a considerable amount of muscle mass. Apart from negatively impacting your body composition, there are also several health concerns with extreme weight loss.
According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, extreme weight loss can land you in slowed metabolism. This could lead to a whole bunch of serious health concerns!
Final Thoughts
Weight loss isn’t an easy process. Diet and exercise require a great deal of consistency and resilience. Therefore, it shouldn’t just be a need but a habit.
Coupling a calorie restricted diet with a sound training program is the best approach to losing weight and improving body composition.
Losing weight doesn’t happen overnight, but if we stick to a healthy diet and workout regularly, 3 months down the line we’re going to thank ourselves.
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Thomas D
Author
Thomas is a dedicated fitness enthusiast with over 12 years of experience in the gym. As a level 2 qualified gym instructor, he combines his passion for working out and nutrition to help others achieve their fitness goals. Thomas stays up to date with the latest fitness research and follows the work of top experts in the field. With a balance of textbook knowledge and real-life experience, he provides practical guidance to help others reach their full potential.